UWC honours first PhD
The University of the Western Cape, as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations, has honoured the late Frank Quint, who became the first recipient of a doctorate from UWC when he earned his PhD in education in 1968.
UWC vice-chancellor and rector Professor Brian O’Connell said the event would enable the university to reflect on its history in its anniversary year, celebrating the lives of some of the convocation members.
He said that when Quint’s doctorate was conferred, UWC was known as the University College of the Western Cape.
In the first few years after the institution’s establishment, degrees were conferred in conjunction with Unisa.
“At the time, higher education was something the majority of people in the Western Cape had very little access to. We were living in complicated times,” O’Connell said.
“Quint was an educator. He was an example of what a teacher should be striving for, the highest academic award.”
Quint was the principal of a number of schools and the rector of Hewat Teachers’ Training College in Athlone.
In the late 1980s he was South Africa’s ambassador to the Netherlands. He died in 2003. His son Charles said it was honour and privilege that his father was being recognised by the university for his accomplishments.
He said his father did not believe that skin colour determined what someone could achieve, and had fought hard to prove this.
Source: IOL
admin @ February 24, 2010